


Everyday Words Seem To Turn Into Love Songs

by submergedmemory



Series: Love Is Like Music [1]
Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: Asian Character(s), Backstory, F/M, Fluff, Pre-Canon, References to BDSM, Slice of Life, ambiguously Asian Glenn Close, oblique references to troubled pasts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22643785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/submergedmemory/pseuds/submergedmemory
Summary: Glenn and his ladylove don’t really see each other as much as they’d like to, but they manage to get by.
Relationships: Glenn Close (Dungeons and Daddies)/Original Character(s), Glenn Close (Dungeons and Daddies)/Original Female Character(s), Glenn Close/Morgan Freeman (Dungeons and Daddies)
Series: Love Is Like Music [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1708477
Comments: 18
Kudos: 37





	Everyday Words Seem To Turn Into Love Songs

**Author's Note:**

> This is 10 percent fanfiction and 90 percent original fiction because we know absolutely nothing about Glenn's spouse, other than, "she existed." Which mean I can make up whatever shit I want.

Glenn remembers the first time he saw her dance. It was the first time he’s seen her in person in about three months, having been away on tour playing half-finished sets at quarter-full venues for audiences only an eighth paying attention, with only a few phone calls keeping him sane for the entirety of the trip. He’s only in town for a few days before the Glenn Close Trio is on the road again, so he’s eager to see her before he needs to leave.

It had become a running joke between them, how in their five, almost six years of dating, Glenn had never actually seen her dance, and in fact was more likely to see her singing, or noodling around on whatever piano she could come across, when she wasn’t bar-tending in the evenings.

(“Oh? Tutoring kids while you barge in and make a mess and distract my students is noodling around, huh?”

“I’m not, ‘barging in,’ I’m auditing. And I’m not, ‘distracting your students,’ I’m scoping out my competition. I can’t let anyone encroach on my brand before I make it big, babe!”

“Encroach on your brand of playing Christmas music in the off-season. Sure.”)

In any case, the first time Glenn sees her dance, it’s not even in her preferred style of ballet, but ballroom – more specifically, Argentine stage tango – and it’s not because she had necessarily wanted to do it or was even being paid to do it, but because she was doing someone a solid – the male teacher had called in sick unexpectedly, and she had been the only one skilled enough (read: strong enough) to help with the lifts required for demonstration.

It’s obvious from the moment Glenn sees her that she’s a professional and _really fucking good_ at what she does, if only going by the way she doesn’t even blink when he throws open the door to what he thinks is another tutoring session with yet another bratty snot-nosed kid, only to find his girlfriend spinning around with a whole other human being above her shoulders in an expertly executed dance lift.

She lets him have an earful later that night in her apartment, chewing him out for barging into another one of her classes _again_ , and that he should be glad that she didn’t fucking drop the woman she was lifting because otherwise she’d be forwarding the hospital bills to him, and good luck continuing the band if _that_ was the case!

He’s only half listening to her rant, his eyes fixated on her arms. They’re both the same height and roughly the same build – they’ve stolen each other’s clothes enough times to confirm that – and, objectively, Glenn knows that, as a dancer, she obviously _has_ to be in good shape if she’s ever planning on being serious about the whole affair – and fuck, Glenn’s in pretty good shape himself – loading and unloading a full band’s worth of equipment almost every night, almost every week, almost every month, is no easy feat, even with the help of his fellow musicians – but as he watches the muscles in her arms tense and flex as she waves them around in exasperation, he wonders, somewhat whimsically, what it might feel like to get picked up and spun around in her arms.

She stops eventually, realizing that Glenn hasn’t actually heard a word that she’s said. She watches him watching her for a moment, considering, before she huffs a sigh, a little exasperated but more amused than anything else. “Well, since you’re not actually listening, want to see what it is I _actually_ want to do with my life?”

She demonstrates to Glenn something she calls the “thirty-two fouettes from Swan Lake,” and then tacks on another thirty-two of those, right there in her shabby apartment, and in addition to being certain that she’s going to make it big in New York or Paris or Amsterdam or wherever the fuck dance is a huge deal, now he can’t stop thinking about the muscles in her legs either.

\---

The next time Glenn is back in town, a month or so later, he has news that he knows she’ll be pleased to hear, but first he needs her honest opinion on a conundrum first. A black, shiny, patent leather conundrum.

Glenn waits until she’s done locking up the bar behind her before he approaches her, shoving the costume on its hanger into her face as she turns around. “What d’you think about this getup?”

She yelps at the breach of personal space, brandishing her keys wildly in her fist like a weapon. “Glenn, what the _fuck_!”

Glenn ignores the outburst, undeterred. “The Glenn Close Trio’s first big gig – our first _headlining_ gig – is in a few weeks and the rest of the band thinks we need to step up our game in the looks department. Our first headlining gig, babe! We can’t fuck this up. What do you think?”

“Where did you even _get_ this thing?”

“Well?” Glenn shakes the costume, slightly impatiently. The green sequins rustle as he does so, also slightly impatiently.

For a long moment, she just stares. After a while, she tilts her head, considering. Finally, she purses her lips. “Hmm.”

Glenn frowns, feeling weirdly crestfallen. “You hate it. I _knew_ it!”

“N...no, I don’t hate it. Far from it, actually. It’s just…”

“Just?”

“Just… how do I put this delicately…”

“What are you _talking_ about?”

"Just… fuck it. If you wear that in public people are going to think you got lost on your way to a BDSM convention."

It’s Glenn who splutters this time. “ _WHAT?_ ”

“I thought you guys played _Christmas_ music. I’m not sure a black leather gimp suit is very holiday appropriate.”

“Jesus!”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong – that shit’s hot as fuck. Your ass is going to look fucking fantastic in that.”

“Please stop talking.”

“Not that it isn’t great looking now – I’d tap that ass all night long if I wasn’t getting my own ass pinched by shitty pervs at work just to survive.”

“Alright, alright! I get it!” Glenn all but screams as he hides his face in the shiny black patent leather, a hot blush creeping up his cheeks and staining it red. She’s laughing outright now, and he’s sure even the tips of his ears must be bright red by now, too.

“I’m sorry, magpie, you’re just too fun to tease,” she says, drawing out her last chuckle into a long drawn out sigh as she wraps an arm around him, gently coaxes him out from behind the leather so that she can press a kiss to his cheek. It doesn’t stop the heat from rising in his face, but it does make him feel better.

She takes his hand in hers and squeezes it. “Come on, I have an idea. And you still haven’t told me what poor bastard you stole this thing off of.”

(“I have _weed_ , you know, if you wanted to get high, you should have just asked!” Glenn says later, ducking his nose and mouth into the collar of his shirt as he points a can of red acrylic spray paint at the patent leather monstrosity hanging in the bathtub.

“Oh my god, fuck _off_ , numb-nuts, I didn’t hear you coming up with something better,” she shoots back, looking a little cross and a lot embarrassed but mostly just nauseous, as she tosses aside her empty aerosol can and reaches for another one. “Be careful of the sequins!”

In the end, it’s not even the sad attempt at a dye job that saves it, but the cheap Santa hat acquired from the ninety-nine cent store that pulls the whole disaster together.

The sequins, by some miracle, are pristine, the green contrasting prettily against the still-dripping red. The costume and the bathroom are not.)

\---

She’s the one who suggests it later, in the small hours of the night, after they’ve scrubbed down the tub – and each other – and aired out the bathroom as best as they can and they’ve squished themselves chest-to-chest, legs tangled together, on her twin-sized bed in her tiny studio apartment.

They take their time just exploring each other’s bodies, like they like to do sometimes when they haven’t seen each other in awhile, tracing the flaws and the imperfections and the scars and the bruises with curious, gentle, wandering hands.

Her fingers drift towards his hair, playing with it – it dries in a natural wave when it's not so laden down with product, a fact that her hands seem endlessly fascinated by. Glenn feels himself drifting off at the soothing, repetitive motion, sleep and awareness fighting to claim him, when he hears her say, barely above a whisper, “I think we should get married.”

Glenn opens his eyes. Her own eyes are closed as if in sleep, her breathing so deep and even that if it weren’t for the clench of her fist on his back, her fingers still toying with the curl of his hair, he would think she was.

He’s quiet for a long moment, just looking at her. There’s still paint in her hair, dying the greying strands of it red, and this close, he can clearly make out the furrow between her brows and the frown lines around her lips, and he thinks she’s never looked more beautiful than she does in this moment. Glenn settles in closer so that his nose nuzzles hers and their foreheads touch. He hears her exhale sharply, her fist unclenching as she holds him impossibly tighter. He closes his eyes, content. “I think so, too.”

\---

Glenn asks her about rings, the next time he’s back in town, just a few weeks later. The date of the big day is fast approaching, so Glenn and the rest of the band feel it best to hang around their home base to prepare.

She pauses, hums thoughtfully as she rests her hands on the keys of the grand piano.

(Not hers, of course, but the concert hall, the one where she teaches singing and piano part-time, when she’s not pouring her time and energy into bar-tending, and not pouring her heart and soul into her dance auditions. They’re not _technically_ supposed to be here, as late as it is, but sometimes Glenn has a way of charming men and women alike into doing what he asks.)

“I actually haven’t put that much thought into it, if I’m being honest.” She’s quiet for a moment, reminiscing. “You know I used to wear a fake one when I first started bar-tending?”

Glenn pauses in his strumming from his seat on the floor. “No shit?” He leans his head back until it rests on the seat of the bench and he’s staring up at her. She pets him absently in response.

“Yeah. I thought it’s stop people from hitting on me.”

“Did it?”

She shrugs. She returns her attention to the piano, floats her fingers across the black and white piano keys, improvising some cute little ditty. The piano itself is outrageously out of tune, but Glenn ignores it, just resumes his strumming, joining in. “Women? Yes. Men? No. In fact, there was one motherfucker that got too handsy, early days of my job.” Her right hand continues its improvised melody, but she lifts up her left hand, clenched into a fist. Cold-cocked him right in the face.”

Glenn grins. “Nice.”

She smiles grimly. “It was, at first. But I still had to finish out my shift, and when I finally left for the night my fingers had bruised and swelled so bad the ring was starting to cut off circulation. I had to have the damn thing cut off of my finger. And they fucked _that_ up, too.” She pulls down the ring finger of her fingerless glove down to reveal a small but visible scar. “I couldn’t play the piano for ages afterwards. I lost a lot of fucking money because I couldn’t teach.” She rolls her eyes. “But my boss at the bar still made me come to work, the shithead.”

Her fingers dance a trill on the keys before she ends on “Shave and a Haircut” with a flourish. “Moral of the story: take off your jewelry before you fight.” She smiles, but it doesn’t really reach her eyes. “But hey – at least I didn't, like... break my legs round house kicking his head off or some shit. Could you imagine if I couldn't dance? I’d go fucking ape-shit.”

Glenn grimaces, in sympathy and some vague sense of unease, gripping the neck of his guitar a little tighter. He can’t really imagine what it would be like to just… not be able to sing, or play guitar – not able to do the only thing he’s got, the only thing he’s good at – even temporarily. He doesn’t really want to.

He doesn’t say any of that, though – not right now, anyway. What he says instead is, “Sounds like a fucking cop to me. Want me to beat him up for you?”

She laughs out loud, and the smile on her face is more genuine now. “My magpie is such a gentleman.” She stands, offers a hand to Glenn and lifts him up with ease. She kisses his knuckles and winks teasingly. “C’mon, let’s get the fuck out of here before security changes their mind and throws us out. This piece of shit’s out of tune, anyway, did you notice?”

Glenn grins and follows her, squeezing her hand. She squeezes back. He forgets all about rings and insecurities.

\---

Glenn is shocked when he sees her waiting by the van after the Glenn Close Trio have closed out the event, even bigger and even better than any of them had dared to hope. It’s the start of something good, they can all tell, and it fills them with an excitement they haven’t felt since the early days of their band.

The big fat paycheck they received as payment for a set well played was pretty fucking nice, too.

He’s not really thinking about that, though, not when she’s leaning so casually against the van, a proud, pleased smile on her face, and it’s all Glenn can do to not drop his guitar amp onto his fucking foot when he sees her. Instead, he passes it off to one of his band-mates, who squawks in protest and outrage, and stumbles towards her in a daze.

"You… you saw?"

Her smile turns into a grin. “Yeah, I was confused when I saw some poor sub walk onstage without his Dom, but turns out? Pretty good at music. I think he has a future in it.”

The others laugh, and Glenn snaps out of his stupor. “Oh, eat my _entire_ ass,” he says, blushing. Even now, she can still make him feel like an awkward, bumbling, virginal teenager, but he’s grinning despite all that, and his heart feels full.

She steps forward, grabs Glenn by the collar, and she kisses him, hard. He squeaks, (as does his costume, which he’s pretty damn sure is still wet from the paint, even weeks afterwards) before he snakes his arms around her and kisses her back with the same enthusiasm and passion and fervor. Distantly, he can hear his band-mates whooping. He ignores them.

Eventually, though, they both have to come up for air, and when they do, she whispers in his ear, breathlessly, “You were fucking beautiful up there, magpie. I’m proud of you. How ‘bout we ditch this popsicle-stick stand so I can show you just how much?”

Glenn hides his goofy grin in the crook of her neck, so full of emotion he thinks he might burst. He grabs her hand and lets her whisk him away.

(“Glenn! GLENN! Glenn, what the _FUCK_! Get the fuck back here and help us pack the van, you fucking jag-off!”

“Forget it, man, it’s hopeless. Guy hasn’t been fucked in so long, just let him have this.”)

\---

“I got the part,” she says later in the small hours of the night, as they lie squished together chest-to-chest, legs tangled together, on a queen-sized bed in a slightly run-down hotel room, basking in the glow of celebration. Her fingers toy with the strands of Glenn’s hair. It’s gotten so long the weight of it has all but pulled the curls out, even without all the product, but she still likes to play with it, and Glenn likes it when she does.

“Wha-? Babe! That’s fucking fantastic!” Glenn pauses, considering. “Wait. Which part are you talking about? You’ve been auditioning for so many plays and performances and dance companies, I’ve fucking lost track of them. I don’t know how _you_ even keep track of them.”

“To be honest? I don’t either.” She says, chuckling quietly. “It’s for The Nutcracker. Seems real apropos considering, huh?”

“Can’t imagine what you mean,” Glenn snickers, then yelps when she yanks on a lock of his hair, not hard, but enough to feel it. He tugs on the white streak of her hair in retaliation, but she only smirks, sticking her tongue out. “Did you get the part you were aiming for?”

Her smirk fades into a grimace. “No, but to be honest, aiming for the Sugar Plum Fairy when you’re a nobody might have been a little too overconfident.” She wrinkles her nose, remembering. “Some might even say ‘stupid.’ So no, I didn’t exactly get the part I was aiming for.”

“Wait. Isn’t the Nutcracker the one with the…?”

“Yep.”

“And did you actually audition for…?”

“Nope.”

“So, they just offered…?”

“Yep.”

Glenn huffs a disbelieving sigh. “Damn.”

She pats his arm consolingly. “I wouldn't worry that much. It’s one of the solos, so it’s a pretty good part, considering. And at least they didn’t cast a white girl to play it… actually, I’m not sure if that makes this better or worse.

“Point is, it’s a good role, I’ll be performing for the rest of December, but more importantly, it’s a touring troupe and they’ve signed me for a 40-week contract.”

Glenn’s eyes widen. “Whoa, does that mean-?”

“That’s right, babe, you’re not the only bad bitch in town who’s going to take the world by storm.” She’s joking, but there’s a spark in her eyes and a smile on her lips, and really, he just _has_ to kiss her, he just can’t help himself.

“Of course, this means that if _you’re_ touring and _I’m_ touring, we’ll be seeing each other even less,” she sighs as they pull away, her smiling fading slightly. Glenn waves his arm dismissively.

“Don’t worry about that, babe! Now that the Glenn Close Trio has finally hit it big -”

She snorts, inelegantly, rolling her eyes. Glenn duly ignores her. “As I was _saying_ , now that the Trio has hit it big, our booking agent will be able to land us any venue we fucking want. We’ll hit up every city your dance troupe sets foot in! You’ll be seeing this gorgeous face so often you won’t know how you got on without it!”

She’s laughing now, shaking her head in amusement. “Well, when you put it like that…” She pulls him closer and holds him impossibly tighter. She closes her eyes, content. “How could I have any reason to doubt?”

\---

Night comes and goes, and though Glenn and the others are sticking around for another day, she’s on the earliest bus back home. (“I still need to tell my boss that I’m quitting,” she sighs as she pecks a chaste kiss on his cheek. Glenn does her one better and plants one on her lips. “Make sure you film the moment, I wanna see the look on his face when you tell him you’re fucking off forever.”)

It’s just as well, though, because as he’s walking back from the bus stop to meet up with the others so they can sort out the money issue, he sees something that stills his breath and has his heart racing.

It’s a shabby looking antique and vintage store, and in the window is a ring.

Glenn bursts into the shop to the shock and dismay of the _very_ perturbed woman at the counter, points at the window, and, in a manner that he’s sure will get him thrown out, says, “Tell me everything about that ring, lady!”

Luckily, the woman does _not_ call the cops, and, once Glenn is in control of his faculties, she pulls the ring out of the display, explaining that the ring is technically not one ring, but _two_ , and to his amazement, she pulls apart the ring to reveal two interlocking bands.

The woman goes on to explain the significance of gimmel rings, how the two betrothed would wear the rings separately before reuniting them as a single wedding band, how sometimes a third hoop was included to represent the person witnessing the couple’s vows, but Glenn barely hears any of it. He’s not even sure _why_ he’s so fixated on a grubby old bit of jewelry that’s probably older than his parents.

All he knows is that if he doesn’t get this ring now, he’s never going to get a ring, period, and really, when he thinks about it like _that_ , the answer feels obvious.

Glenn wrenches his gaze away from the rings. “How much?”

(He gets an earful from the others later that night in the van, chewing him out for “spending our biggest fucking paycheck on a _fucking shitty ring_ , that money was supposed to go back into the band, how the _fuck_ are we supposed to survive on the road _without any fucking money, Glenn?_ ” and that he should, “be glad that we aren’t fucking dropping you from the band, right this fucking instant, you _fucking shithead_ , and good fucking luck getting back home because we sure as _fuck_ aren’t driving you back with us if _that_ was the case, you fucking _fuck_!”

Glenn’s only half listening to them rant, his eyes fixated on the rings in his hands. The rings are honestly not so special looking, just two simple, thin rose-gold bands with a squiggle pattern on one side of both. One is polished to a mirror-shine, the other given a matte finish to contrast. They’re the most beautiful pieces of jewelry he’s ever seen in his life.

They stop eventually, realizing that Glenn hasn’t actually heard a word that they’ve said, and heave the same disgusted sighs. “You’re dealing with all the equipment yourself until you pay us back,” One of them mutters, walking out of the van in exasperation.

“ _And_ we’re only getting you the shitty ramen noodles, too,” the other one adds, before they, too, leave the van in a huff.

Glenn ignores them. He turns it over and over in his hands, pulls it apart and then rejoins them into one. He lifts it up so that it catches the dingy light in the van, making it shine and sparkle.

He smiles. It’s _perfect_.

\---

This time, it’s Glenn who surprises her, standing outside of the dressing room with a ring in his pocket and a bouquet of red and yellow roses in his arms. Her fellow dancers laugh and tease and ask her where she’s been hiding “this hot guy,” but she ignores all that and smiles at Glenn, only has eyes for him, and somehow, once again, _he’s_ the one overwhelmed with feeling.

“You guys should go on ahead without me,” she says to the other dancers, waving them off. They tease and laugh some more and ask if Glenn has “a brother, or a sister, maybe,” before they dutifully leave to do whatever it is dancers do after a hard night’s work.

“Be careful of the snow!” She calls after them, watching her fellow dancers leave before turning her eyes towards Glenn again. She winks. “C’mon, magpie, let’s ditch this popsicle-stick stand.”

\---

“So. You saw?”

The two of them don't end up very far from the concert hall. In fact, the two of them haven’t even technically left at all, having escaped the crowd through the back entrance and settling themselves there until the throng disperses completely, even though the temperature is steadily dropping and snow is slowly but surely sticking and collecting on the ground.

She’s looking at him expectantly, and Glenn feels a bit breathless. He’s silent for a moment, just staring her. Eventually, he clears his throat, and hands her the bouquet of roses, saying, “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, babe. Even if you _did_ have to wear a shitty racist costume. I still can’t believe they thought wearing a tangzhuang was above board.”

She snorts, laughing so hard she’s almost doubled over from it, and Glenn smiles, pleased. “It wasn’t _that_ awful. At least it wasn't a cheongsam. And anyway, I _did_ try what you suggested, so it’s not like I was ignoring your ideas.”

“And?”

“Costume designer said that I’d have to pay for the repairs if I tried stapling one more tea bag onto the costume.”

Now it’s Glenn’s turn to laugh, the image of her attempting to staple bags of pu-erh or lapsang or Lipton to her clothing just too ridiculous, yet all too plausible to imagine. She’s still giggling, too, smiling so big the laugh lines around her lips become visible and her eyes scrunch up from the strength of her smile, and Glenn thinks that she’s never looked more beautiful than she does in this moment, so he does the only think he can think to do and leans in and kisses her, hard. She’s still for a moment, surprised, before she pushes him back up against the wall and kisses him back with the same enthusiasm and passion and fervor.

Eventually, though, they both have to come up for air, and when they do, Glenn says, breathlessly, “You were fucking _amazing_ , babe. I think this is the beginning of some good shit. For _both_ of us.”

She doesn’t say anything in response, just grins and ducks her head in an uncharacteristic moment of shyness, and from this angle he can see the snowflakes collecting on her hair, the little droplets of water clinging to her eyelashes, and…

Well.

Since he _is_ this close,

(Glenn reasons, slowly getting on his knee)

and the rings _are_ right there in his pocket,

(Glenn rationalizes, slipping a hand into his jacket)

he _might as well_ just do it,

(Glenn decides, pulling out the ring and staring up right into her stunned, shocked stare)

right at this moment.

(Right?)

\---

As it turns out, getting picked up and spun around in her arms is _fucking awesome._

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Glenn is "magpie" because (a) they're pretty, they're loud and they're annoying, but they're also good luck in (east) Asian cultures, and (b) Freddie plays a magpie in The Witch is Dead.  
> 2) Her name doesn't come up at all, but the Mysterious Significant Other is named Michel Legrand, after, of course, Michel Legrand, the French composer.  
> 3) This whole mess started because somebody asked for head-canons and I came up with what type of wedding ring the dads would use to propose: https://whotaughtyougrammar.tumblr.com/post/190625549752/carol-is-moved-to-tears-when-she-finds-out-that


End file.
